attack the Separatist forces, or 3) surround the forces and ask for diplomatic discussions. There was a fourth possibility but it was still sensitive and not released on the poll. The forth possibility involved nothing more than a political 'cover your ass' maneuver to rescue a member of the opposition party that had managed to get himself into a pickle. But President Alberts didn't want to take the chance that the internal White House Staff polls would get leaked to the press and therefore let the Separatists know that there was an American senator stranded somewhere in Mons City.
'I'm not so certain that the Separatists are going to just go away, sir. Somehow they have managed to amass quite an armada and have complete control of the Tharsis territory. The citizens there are trapped and are really at the mercy of the Separatists, Mr. President.' The sec def had seen the polling data as well and wasn't sure of a good way out of this mess either. 'We aren't even certain what the Seppies want, sir.'
'Conner, you know I don't like that derogatory slang,' President Alberts scolded his secretary of defense. 'If the press got wind of somebody in my administration using it our approval rating could slide terribly.'
'Sorry, Mr. President. As I meant to say, the Separatists have not even given us any demands, sir. We don't know if this is an act of war or if they plan to hold the region hostage as some bargaining aspect at the Summit talks,' Conner explained. The reasoning behind the attacks was baffling to everyone in the system. There was no rhyme or reason for it as anybody could see. What advantage did the Separatist leadership think that an all out attack against the much greater force of the United States would gain? There were some at the Pentagon suggesting that the Separatists had way overestimated their capabilities much in the same way that Hitler had near the end of World War II. There was no way the Separatists could hope to maintain such a massive war fighting machine.
William Alberts stood from his chair and stepped away from the long mahogany conference table. The Situation Room had basically the same decor since President John Fitzgerald Kennedy had created the Situation Room back in the mid-twentieth century after the Bay of Pigs incident. President Alberts walked slowly around the room where more than ninety-five other presidents had stood and pondered the heavy decisions of their time. The weight of the office bore fully on his shoulders and he looked to history for insight. Was there some approach that his predecessors had used or some profound thought that had kept them on the right path that he could emulate?
How Nixon must have paced the room during the bombings of Hanoi! What did President Carter do as he analyzed the peace talks between Begin and Sadat? What of President Reagan during the many Cold War incidents, what of the father and son Bushes during their respective wars in the middle east? How had William Jefferson Clinton handled the fighting in Old Africa? What of the several presidents to follow and the Global War of Muslim Extremism? And how had the many presidents to follow the 'Great Expansion' of humanity handled their various 'situations' of slow economies, overpopulation, civil unrest between colonies throughout the Sol system, and political infighting for territorial control? How had President Charlotte Ames dealt with the creation of the New World Government Consolidation Act and the assimilation of all the world governments under one constitution, an America- and United Nations-based constitution? How had President Victor Kolmogorov handled the news of the first interstellar spaceflight and the subsequent missions out of the solar system to other stars? How had the great President Sienna Madira handled the Separatist Secession and the creation of the Reservation in the desert of the red planet?
More important, Alberts thought, how would he handle this situation now in such a way that history would recall him as one of the great presidents of history? How could he salvage this incident for the good of the DNC? He searched the faces of his most trusted military and intelligence and political advisors around the room, but was certain that they waited for his direction. Politics was always that way—few were willing to be the first to stick their necks out onto the political public chopping block.
President Alberts had only made a few other such tough decisions and had used the Situation Room briefly in the past, but they were nowhere near the drastic scale of the decision before him. The Triton invasion was a much smaller mess and was so far away from mainstream America that most voters had paid it little attention. The Kuiper Station raid was even smaller and farther away. Otherwise, the economy had been cruising along steadily— the war didn't hurt that—and most Americans had gone on obliviously about their daily routines. His administration had been a good one. He sure didn't need this damned Separatist uprising so near the end of his term.
'Well, we're damned if we do and damned if we don't.' The president paused for a brief moment and added more. 'Popularity, I have always thought, may aptly be compared to a coquette—the more you woo her, the more apt is she to elude your embrace.'
'Mr. President?' Secretary Conner raised an eyebrow in question of the comment.
'John Tyler, the tenth President of the United States of America, said that. So true in 1841 and perfectly meaningful in 2383. Just when we've got the approval from the public that we need, something like this comes along and inevitably will destroy all we've worked for. Possibly overnight, and maybe even in a few short minutes.'
'Yes sir.' Conner nodded agreement. 'I understand sir.'
'Damnit.' Alberts paused for a second as if he were going to change his mind but then thought better of it. 'We don't attack. At least not all out.'
'Sir? The longer we let them dig in, the harder it will be to dig them out,' the chairman of the Joint Chiefs advised from the other side of the table.
'I realize that, Sandy. But we really need to know what they are up to. My director of national intelligence seems to be a little short on data in that regards, right Mike?' the president scolded his DNI. The DNI only grunted in acknowledgment.
'We support the withdrawal of Senator Moore and that is all we do on the ground. The press would have a field day if I let a Republican senator get killed and do nothing to try and get him out. Beyond that, we take out the Separatist armada of ships above Tharsis. We do not go to ground with full mecha divisions. One division of tanks and one squadron of fighter support. Understood?'
'What about our troops still left on the ground in the region, sir?' The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs asked. 'We're not leaving them behind to die, are we?'
'They'll just have to hold out a little while longer while we look for a diplomatic solution.' Alberts scanned the room for further insights but there were none. Again, the political chopping block was a lonely place to stick one's neck. It was obvious that the Joint Chiefs did not like his decision but wouldn't risk their careers to contradict him. But that was okay, they didn't have to like the order. They just had to follow it. 'Let us move on it, people.'
'Yes sir, ' Conner replied, and immediately began passing along strings of orders to the senior advisors in the room and across the system via AIC QM.
Alberts decided to take a stroll around the West Wing and wait for further developments. The end of his era was going to come soon and he feared now with much less praise than he had hoped for. His legacy was changing dramatically by the second.
'CAG on deck!'
